A.W.E. Tuning in Sport Compact Car's Ultimate Street Car Challenge 3

In September 2003, A.W.E. Tuning was a late entry into the Sport Compact Car Magazine Ultimate Street Car Challenge (USCC) 3. This is a competition featuring the very best street cars from all over North America. Tests are conducted to measure peak and overall engine power, skidpad g-force, quarter mile acceleration, brake stopping distance, emissions, fuel economy, ride comfort, drivability, appearance, engineering, and a raw display of power.

Entrants included a supercharged and intercooled Dodge Viper putting out 1000 crank hp, two boosted Toyota Supras (one with nearly 800 crank hp), a couple of DSM cars (able to rev to 8200 rpms on 26psi of boost), and a 6.0l BMW V12 powered Ultima GTR. The big surprise was that the overall event winner was a 2003 supercharged Nissan 350Z entered by Axis Wheels, with the lowest dynoed power! It was a competent and flexible machine.

Working from early morning to fix damage incurred the day before while at the European Car Magazine Audi S4 Challenge, members of the A.W.E. crew scrambled to repair the Silverbullet in time. With minutes to spare, we limped the car to the the kick-off photoshoot and filmed team interviews, and then returned to work on the car until the dyno testing the next morning. While practically all systems were repaired, it was discovered during the power tests the next day that an intercooler core was cracked, and the Silverbullet was handicapped by a 100 hp loss. Alas, this was not fixable in time, and the car soldiered on to an 8th place overall finish.

The immense effort to repair the car in time did not go unrecognized by the USCC organizers, and A.W.E. was presented the "Never Say Die" award at the ending banquet. Thankfully we did finish this event without further incident, which could not be said by some of the other competitors. A Nissan Skyline ventilated the underside of its engine in a spectacular way while accelerating down the front straight of the road course, leaving bits of connecting rods and its dipstick on the asphalt, and a Toyota MR2 running 23psi to 9800 rpms blew its headgasket on the first day. All in all, we had a solid, yet uncompetitive, showing. This Challenge really did bring out the best of the best!